Gibson admitted that newcomers like Marco Belinelli, Nate Robinson and Valdimir Radmanovic are still playing catch-up on the defensive side of the ball. If that improves, they see minutes. If it doesn't, they don't. It needs to improve, however, especially almost a month into the regular season now.
"At times it's been different because they're still figuring out the defensive sets, the defensive slides,'' Gibson said of life with the bench players. "They don't understand that in the fourth quarter we're used to just locking down on D. The fourth quarter has mostly been the backbones of our team, knowing that we don't let anybody score in the fourth, so it's still a long ways to go and we'll eventually get it.''